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Toot’n Totum has launched preparations for its largest location with a sizeable donation to Amarillo Habitat for Humanity.

The Amarillo-based convenience retailer this week closed its purchase of a 10-acre hotel site at East Interstate 40 and Lakeside Drive, on Loop 335, for an undisclosed sum, spokeswoman Melinda Batchelor said.

On Thursday, representatives of Habitat for Humanity were removing furnishings, interior decor and fixtures to stock the Amarillo nonprofit’s ReStore, which sells reclaimed furniture and building materials.

The hotel unloading began Wednesday and will continue into next week, Habitat Executive Director Chas Massey said.

“There’s over 250 side tables, sofa tables, desks, chairs, banquet tables,” Massey said, ticking off a long list of items to be harvested from the hotel. “I’m speechless. We’re just truly blessed.”

“And the new things we can use in our homes,” Massey said. “There are new shower heads, new doorknobs, even doors that we can use to cut our costs so the families’ mortgages are even less.”

Toot’n Totum grabbed the property — on a busy car and tractor-trailer traffic corridor — when it went on the market, company President and CEO Greg Mitchell said.

A Petro Stopping Center and Pilot Travel Center operate at the intersection. Other truck stops are within the vicinity.

The hotel structure will be razed to make way for the store, Batchelor said.

“While it will be a massive undertaking to prepare the site, that will allow us time to work with our architectural firms to develop plans for what will be our largest Toot’n Totum location,” Mitchell said.

“Our first step was to partner with Habitat for Humanity so that almost 2,000 pieces of furniture and furnishings could be removed and used to further their goal of providing for those in need.”

The property most recently was owned by 7909 Amarillo, a limited liabilty company based in Los Angeles, Potter-Randall Appraisal District Records show.

PRAD lists the tract’s appraised value at more than $1 million.

The two-story structure encompasses more than 152,000 square feet.

The property opened as the Hilton Inn of Amarillo in late 1973 and changed to a Kingston Hotel in 1989, when it was sold for $6.5 million to M.B. Hilton Investments of Fort Worth, according to AGN Media archives.

By the summer of 1990, the new owners had filed for bankruptcy protection.

A bankruptcy trustee shut the hotel down by December that year.

Dallas developer T.M. Mian bought the facility out of bankruptcy in 1993.

Mian Cos. remodeled it and reopened it within months as a Radisson Hotel.

As a Radisson, the hotel offered 11,000 square feet of meeting space, an 18,000-square-foot interior atrium, 207 guest rooms, Cafe In The Park, Silver Dollar Lobby Bar and Krystal Palace Nightclub, according to a brochure provided by Toot’n Totum.

Ownership of the hotel, and its brand, changed numerous times in the intervening years.

Massey said Habitat will store the donated items in warehouse space offered by a friend and bring items to the ReStore as restocking is needed.

The Habitat ReStore can be visited at Southwest 34th Avenue and Western Street in the Fleetwood Shopping Center.

“Knowing that the contents of this landmark location will help so many in need is as important to us as what will be built in its place,” Mitchell said.

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How funny, I made remarks about the political issues and the good ol boy system between Greg Mitchell and the money people behind Habitat ReStore and the city commission and they pulled my comments.

So I guess I'll play their game and say good for Mitchell for donating things he has no use for to the ReStore. It's still a case of you wash my back and I'll wash yours. Yes people will benefit from the items that comes out of the old hotel but Greg Mitchell doesn't do anything that doesn't benefit him either.

I would still be watching for him to ask for the same tax break from his friends on the city commission as he did for his store downtown.

I'm so sorry ANG falls in line with the good ol boy system and doesn't like anyone talking bad about Mitchell, the city commission or the good ol boy system and politics that way in Amarillo. Now I'll be curious to see if they pull this post too!

I agree with former lawman! Greg Mitchell doesn't do anything that doesn't benefit him. If he truly wants to give back and help the people of Amarillo tell him to keep his gas prices down. Amarillo is constantly one of the highest in the state of Texas thanks to Mr. Mitchell and moreover he doesn't care. He's been pillaging citizens of Amarillo for years.

Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear. Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787

Can you please answer a question for me? Why was former lawmans first comment pulled/ deleted? Was that your doing, henrys, you were directed to, preferential treatment? Inquiring minds would like to know. Kinda nice to be able to pick and choose huh?

What is wrong with Mitchell making money? That a what he is in business for. I just thank him for, while in the process of making money, finding a way to help.
Kudos Mitchell and good luck on your next venture.
Oh, and for getting that eyesore demolished.